Little Hopper Weathering

While I was finishing a couple of SD60's I had a bunch of wash I made up to weather the engines, so I ran some freight cars through the graffiti shop and then dirtied them up. I just need to paint up some more Fox Valley Wheels to get on them. Soon enough...

Rusty Hoppers

I met up recently with another N Scaler in Vegas named Mike. Besides being another FreemoN guy, he is also pretty good at weathering. I have also been taking inventory of all of my rolling stock while I am waiting to get into the new home of the Skally Line. I had started to experiment with some new weathering techniques, which I will probably combine with some that Mike showed me.
Here are a couple of the cars I did back in MN:

Nothing too fancy, just a simple wet sanding to soften up the logo, some blotted on rust spots, a cote of Dullcote, some Pan Pastels and another coat of Dullcoat to seal it all in. I will come back later and airbrush the trucks and wheels to give them a used look too.

FBOX Weathering

I've been picking up some of Exactrail's new FBOX Hy_Cubes. These are great cars all the way around, the molding, lettering, body mounted coupler, metal wheels... they are some of my favorite rolling stick. But there is always room for improvement. For my newer cars I like to hit them with a dusting of a diluted L&N Grey, 8 parts isopropyl alcohol to 1 part paint. I also take a micro brush and apply roof brown to the sides of the wheels. This tones the car down and gets rid of that "new out of the box" look.

The other area that I've been upgrading on my cars are the crossover platforms. FVM and Athearn have been including these on many of their new cars. I like them for a few reasons: 1) They look more prototypical. 2) They close the visual distance between cars, making our oversized N Scale couplers look a little smaller. and 3) If I take my cars to a FreemoN ops session, I can more easily distinguish my cars from everyone elses.

This upgrade is so easy it is crazy. I use BLMA 403 platforms. You get enough for 10 cars in each pack. I drill a #80 hole directly on top of the center of the molded on platform, put a little CA on top of the molded platform and on the stem of the etched platform and stick the two together. No painting is needed as most platforms are bare metal. Make sure to put the platforms with the notch on the end with the brake wheel.

Between the weathering an the platforms the cars appearance improves and an otherwise great car gets a little better.